Gathering place for osteopaths
"Massage feels good because it changes your gene expression"
Found on my favourite geek site.
Here's the link to the geek site if you want a brief:
http://www.gizmodo.co.uk/2012/02/massage-feels-good-because-it-chan...
and here's the link to the actual research abstract:
http://stm.sciencemag.org/content/4/119/119ra13
First time post so hope you enjoy it!
Tags: Massage, awesome, expression, gene
Replies to This Discussion
-
community teamPermalink Reply by Ronan O'Brien on -
I'm pretty excited about the potential for research like this providing models of understanding for treatment induced physiological changes. Great find Matt!
Other similar posts that musers might find interesting are 1) Mervyn Waldman on Mechanisms in Osteopathy (includes discussions on mechanotransduction effecting gene expression) and Michael Kuchera's recent Sacral Musings LIVE! event ( you can find the PDF downloads in the mechanobiology group)
-
Permalink Reply by melonfarmer on
-
community teamPermalink Reply by Ronan O'Brien on -
Very useful Melonfarmer. Thanks. Nice to see an open access paper too!
Michael Kuchera in his Accomplishing More than We Imagined event talked about treatment inducing exercise like effects on the patients physiology, particilarly in relation to elevating nitric oxide levels (see slides in mechanobiology group).
Have you come across any other interesting papers about mechanotransduction?
-
Permalink Reply by Rikamortis on
-
...Osteopathy says NO!!
INTERNATIONAL JOURNAL OF MOLECULAR MEDICINE 14: 443-449, 2004443Nitric oxide as a possible mechanism for understanding thetherapeutic effects of osteopathic manipulative medicine (Review)ELLIOTT SALAMON, WEI ZHU and GEORGE B. STEFANONeuroscience Research Institute, State University of New York,College at Old Westbury, Old Westbury, NY 11568, USAReceived March 15, 2004; Accepted April 22, 2004
Ronan O'Brien said:Very useful Melonfarmer. Thanks. Nice to see an open access paper too!
Michael Kuchera in his Accomplishing More than We Imagined event talked about treatment inducing exercise like effects on the patients physiology, particilarly in relation to elevating nitric oxide levels (see slides in mechanobiology group).
Have you come across any other interesting papers about mechanotransduction?
-
Permalink Reply by Tracy Hannigan on -
I have found this interesting narrative on the study about massage and inflammation - http://www.sciencebasedmedicine.org/index.php/massage-therapy-decre...
The article provides explanatory detail and expresses concerns about the way research is used to justify claims of treatment efficacy. The authors acknowledge that there appears to be clinical benefit from massage therapy, and overall the study is not as methodologically bad as some studies are - yet shows exactly why the manual therapy professions do themselves a reputational disservice by stretching the meaning of this study beyond what it actually said in order to create a 'scientific justification' for 'why something works'.
I am aboslutely not anti-research - I consider it is very important to the profession and its development. However I do think we should take a reasoned and non opportunitistic approach to understanding what it means to what we do.
-
Permalink Reply by melonfarmer on
-
what is interesting is how many manual therapists will jump all over a piece of research that appears to back up their beliefs but trot out the research cant explain what I do line when research says the opposite...
Indicative that manual therapy is more rooted in dogma and belief than science unfortunatly
Tracy Hannigan said:I have found this interesting narrative on the study about massage and inflammation - http://www.sciencebasedmedicine.org/index.php/massage-therapy-decre...
The article provides explanatory detail and expresses concerns about the way research is used to justify claims of treatment efficacy. The authors acknowledge that there appears to be clinical benefit from massage therapy, and overall the study is not as methodologically bad as some studies are - yet shows exactly why the manual therapy professions do themselves a reputational disservice by stretching the meaning of this study beyond what it actually said in order to create a 'scientific justification' for 'why something works'.
I am aboslutely not anti-research - I consider it is very important to the profession and its development. However I do think we should take a reasoned and non opportunitistic approach to understanding what it means to what we do.
-
community teamPermalink Reply by Ronan O'Brien on -
Thanks Tracy. A good addition to the debate.
melonfarmer said:what is interesting is how many manual therapists will jump all over a piece of research that appears to back up their beliefs but trot out the research cant explain what I do line when research says the opposite...
Indicative that manual therapy is more rooted in dogma and belief than science unfortunatly
What is interesting is how many people see science as free from dogma and beliefs. Everything is belief. This particular belief, of science been the holy grail of truth and authority, is called sciencism.
The notion of science been separate from our beliefs and subjectivity, as if it exists independent of our subjective perceptions and subjective concepts, is nothing short of delusional. That's my belief :)
-
Permalink Reply by Small Fry on -
I agree Ronan. None of us can know what our own house looks like until we step outside. Besides, walk into any hospital and you'll see a ton of stuff going on that is not supported by good quality evidence. Just about every research paper ends 'more investigation needed' anyway.
I don't actually understand MF's garbled sentence, so I've given up trying to answer it. Sorry. Suffice to say, neither medicine nor manual therapy begin working just because the papers that say so get their peer-review. The laws of nature don't wait for clearance from people in white coats.
As far as manual therapy goes, supporting OR refuting a set of tools, without reference to the paradigm in which it is supposed to be applied, is invalid and pointless. It's weary-making discussing it with 'enlightened' people who seem unable to take this on board.
-
Permalink Reply by Tracy Hannigan on
-
I certainly don't claim to be 'enlightened' and I don't blindly cite research as if its gospel coming from on high. Two issues ago virtually the entire BMJ issue was on research fraud - so I don't think people in medicine think that it is a rare occurance.
I see us trying to grasp at what supports what we do and show it to the world, but on the other hand not paying any attention to the things which are critical of the claims we make (not necessarily about what we do, but how we justify it). I was discussing a recent very large long term study that showed a certain supplement was found to be risky for a large group of patients for whom it tended to be prescribed by naturopaths - and the reason I was shot down was because this particular person was convinced that anything that came from the realm of research was just trying to contaiminate the purity of naturopathy and that we should always no matter what remain open minded. To me he was saying that if it disagrees with him, he will ignore it and he had trouble refuting that observation. I am a firm proponent of having an open mind, but I don't think that means I need to allow my brain to fall out as a consequence of atrophy and disuse!
-
Permalink Reply by Small Fry on
-
Those dirty devious massage therapists deceiving goverments worldwide to inflict their dangerous therapy on every living person! That could never happen in pharmaceuticals because research is clearly so objective!
Not sure who you mean by 'we', I'd say there are many attitudes to research among us.
Not sure about the example of the naturopath, without knowing more about it, but suffice to say the reported deaths from supplements worldwide last year was zero, so when it comes to caution over nutrients there is a case for getting it in perspective. On the other hand, give somebody the wrong medication, or get confused over a single decimal point and you have a death on your hands: even properly used medications now kill more people than road accidents according to some sources, while conservatively a tenth of all people admitted to hospital are killed, injured, infected or poisoned by the hospital, even more are neglected dehydrated or malnourished, and almost none are actually 'cured'. Meanwhile, manual therapists have millions of satisfied patients and very few harmed - and I'd say they are the best judge of whether they are better. So clearly sauce for the goose is not sauce for the hippopotamus.
-
Permalink Reply by melonfarmer on
-
not appropriate... sorry
-
Permalink Reply by Tracy Hannigan on
-
The supplement point was the large recent re-analysis of 12,000 women on calcium supplementation and found that women were significantly (to the tune of 30%) more at risk for myocardial infarction if they took calcium than if they didn't. No significantly increased risk for stroke.
I'm not denying manual therapy has benefits - the issue comes when we try to use science we don't understand to justify 'why it works' -if people are better, that is awesome and what the bottom line is and yes they are the best judge. If it was up to requiring hard evidence for certain effects to be had from manual therapy well then I wouldn't be in my training right now!
And I wouldn't deny most of what you cite about current risk of morbidity or death using things like NSAIDS etc - but I don't think that means sticking head in the sand is the solution.
© 2012 Created by Ronan O'Brien.
